2013 really has been an absolutely incredible year of television. To honour these fantastic shows, I’ve decided to compile a list of my 10 favourite shows of the past year. Some shows have just begun, some have just ended, but all are worthy of recognition. My list is not numbered, and is posted in alphabetical order, because it’s impossible to choose one over another. There were certain shows I had to omit to keep the list down to ten — otherwise this post may have gone on forever — and so many more shows that I haven’t had a chance to experience yet. I look forward to 2014, where I will hopefully have to make an even harder decision than I did this year. Keep reading ›

I’d like to call for a moment of silence for one of the greatest television shows of the 21st Century.

Now that we’ve had a second to mourn the huge loss, I’d like to get onto more positive things, mainly the extremely satisfying concluding episode this great show deserved. I have loved many shows over my lifetime, some prestigious, some just guilty-pleasures, but its hard for me to remember a show that had everything wrapped up so neatly in its final hour. Often this is a result of the final season or two being less than ideal, usually because the network wants to milk the show’s success until it dies. The final season of Breaking Bad was one of the best seasons of television I have ever seen, a result of the incredibly smart decision of Vince Gilligan & Co to end the show well before it “jumped the shark”. This let the creator finish the show on his own terms, making the end feel organic, as well as having been planned since the pilot.

This is not to say that it does not have its faults. While the episode managed to sum up virtually every single plot-thread of its entire run, the whole thing seemed a bit too clean and easy. Almost everything that occurred (the police losing Walt, Walt easily walking into places being watched, Walt putting the ricin in the Stevia, etc.) seemed much too simple when compared with the rest of the show. It’s true that Breaking Bad isn’t a very realistic show overall, but usually its easier to see the planning behind each event that occurs, it’s rare to find so much of Walt’s plans left up to luck.

Despite the ease with which Walter White’s story comes to an end, it was still an incredibly strong, poignant end to one of the most exhilarating shows on television. I will miss this wonderful show about the chemistry teacher who broke bad, and all the people he took down with him (especially Jesse – I would never forgive Gilligan if he’d killed off that punching-bag of a character). It will definitely be talked about for years to come, and I can’t wait to continue that conversation.